RETHINKING GOOD INTENTIONS is a solo show written and performed by Nancy Edwards, a retired nurse who lives in Ottawa. It is largely based on her book “Not One, Not Even One: A Memoir of Life-altering Experiences in Sierra Leone, West Africa” (Friesen Press, 2022). Nancy transports audiences to the rural villages of Southern Sierra Leone in the late 1970s and 1980s. This is where she volunteered with CUSO and worked as a community health nurse for five years.

Through compelling stories, Nancy chronicles a journey that is both poignant and humorous. The audience gets a close-up view of how Nancy, with the patience of local mentors, made awkward adjustments to life and field-work realities, learned how to rethink the delivery of preventive maternal and child health services, and slowly came to terms with her role as a cultural outsider while in Sierra Leone and then on her return to Canada. Watch Nancy’s initially blundered and then inspired encounters with village chiefs, traditional birth attendants, and subsistence farmers. Take in village experiences that rattled Nancy’s cultural preconceptions, provoked her notions of social privilege, and forever deepened her global connections.

Nancy’s heart-warming and heart-breaking stories about public health work in the villages make audiences laugh and cry. This new play is full of humanity.